The Long boom after World War II left Americans with unrealistic expectations, but there’s no going back to that unusual Golden Age

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to everyone who helped support Food Brings Hope!

Home of the Month

'The Destin' by DR Horton, located in the River Oaks Community in Ormond Beach

BUILDER MARKETING - START WITH A SOLID FOUNDATION

In the home building business, success requires collaboration between you and your customer, along with: ongoing communication, planning, a well thought out design backed by engineering, blueprints and precise execution - all based on the needs, desires and budget of your client. The same holds true for your Marketing. To achieve success, your business model should be backed by a Strategic Marketing Plan (blueprint) that includes (but not limited to): Goals & Objectives, Branding Statement, Defined Audience, S.W.O.T. Analysis, Budget, Media Plan, Co-op Policy, and Plan of Action. Elements of your plan should be incorporated into your sales presentation. For example: An in-depth analysis of your competition helps define your product and position in the marketplace. In today’s world, product technology and competition has made most builders better to a certain degree. So if “better” is not the deciding factor for a prospect to purchase, what is? Think of your Strategic Marketing Plan as your blueprint for success - the foundation of your brand, your marketing, advertising, sales and future of your business.

When you are trying to build a successful social media page that will help to sell your products and build you a big following, what’s important is to try and ‘sell the dream’.

So what does that mean? It means focusing on you value proposition.

A value proposition is the way in which your product or your service can change people’s lives for the better. What is it that people should get from your product if all goes well? The old saying goes that you don’t sell hats, you sell warm heads! This is to say that people don’t buy hats because they want to wrap fabric around their heads – they buy them for an end goal that will make life a little more comfortable. Your product and your service are more than the sum of their parts.

The Emotional Hook

This is even more important when what you’re selling has an ‘emotional hook’. The ideal example here is the ‘new construction home’. This could be described as just any house with walls, a roof, kitchen, etc… you get the picture, which in itself doesn’t offer that much value.

So the value proposition is tied to what those words can do for the person. And, of course this means that you’re going to help your buyers to fulfil their desires as homeowner. More than that, you’re going to help them build their home they have been working so hard for to create a space they can cherish with their loved ones and make memories.

That’s the emotional hook and if you were trying to sell the product on a sales page, that’s what you’d focus on.

In social media, you don’t want to be so ‘on the nose’. Instead, your objective will be to focus on the lifestyle that is associated with the product you’re selling and to promote this through your channel.

How to Sell the Lifestyle

So how might you do this? A quick look on Instagram will quickly show you how people are selling new homes: they do it by creating a lifestyle and sharing images and videos of themselves in their new home cooking, reading, relaxing, or just looking generally happy in their home.

And this helps to gain them followers who want that lifestyle and who want to live vicariously. And it also generates a lot of sales – more effectively than any on-the-nose marketing attempt!

Migrating your business to a new operating system, even if it means upgrading from a very similar one, is a huge undertaking that can take months of preparation. Windows 10 is Microsoft's latest operating system and was released on July 15, 2015. Since then, it has undergone two major version updates with the third, code named Redstone 2, due for release sometime in late 2016. Adoption of Windows 10 remains surprisingly low, particularly in the business world where Windows 7 continues to be the most common choice.

For assistance with upgrading to Windows 10, or any of your business or personal IT needs, please give us a call!

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